Why is the Steam game £4 more then PSN/XBLA?

edited April 2012 in The Walking Dead
Can someone explain this to me? why is the steam version of the walking dead (I paid £18.89 pre purchase) but on my PS3 its £15.99 for all episodes?

What does the steam version have that costs more?

TIA

Comments

  • edited April 2012
    skidpro wrote: »
    Can someone explain this to me? why is the steam version of the walking dead (I paid £18.89 pre purchase) but on my PS3 its £15.99 for all episodes?

    What does the steam version have that costs more?

    TIA

    Steam currency conversions are sometimes $1=£1 even when this isn't true. Hence Steam costs more.
  • edited April 2012
    Steam currency conversions are sometimes $1=£1 even when this isn't true. Hence Steam costs more.

    No offence but what you say is false, and considering you're a mod I'd of expected you to do some research before handing out an explanation.. The Walking dead is £20.99 or $24.99 on Steam. £15.99 or $19.99 on PSN. Furthermore prices on Steam are set by the Publisher not Steam. I'm glad I didn't pre-order The Walking Dead as I'm not going to buy it until PC gamers have to pay the same price as console gamers for the same game.
  • edited April 2012
    Steam currency conversions are sometimes $1=£1 even when this isn't true. Hence Steam costs more.

    your wrong here, its now £20.99 on staem or $24.99 on steam, so how did you figure that out?

    I feel a bit ripped off here, I have the consoles and imagine my surprise to find it for £15.99 on PSN and I paid pre purchase of £18.89 on steam now its £20.99 or $24.99 on Steam, what is the Steam version getting more content?

    I would have bought the console version TBH, this is blatant rip off for the PC gamer.....
  • edited April 2012
    No offence but what you say is false, and considering you're a mod I'd of expected you to do some research before handing out an explanation.. The Walking dead is £20.99 or $24.99 on Steam. £15.99 or $19.99 on PSN. Furthermore prices on Steam are set by the Publisher not Steam. I'm glad I didn't pre-order The Walking Dead as I'm not going to buy it until PC gamers have to pay the same price as console gamers for the same game.

    Cut him some slack, divisionten seems like a nice guy and he's doing the best he can. He's not an employee, just an average joe like us! :D

    These different distribution arrangements can become difficult and are not that uncommon. I can think of several other programs or apps that have different prices in different digital stores. Items on my Nook Color are routinely more expensive than the same apps directly through the App store. And those apps are often different prices in iTunes. Though developers may be able to set the price on Steam, that doesn't account for the percentage of the sale Steam will take. Perhaps the difference in cost is related to the amount of money taken by Sony and taken by Steam with adjustments made so that Telltale receives the same amount on the back end.

    For that matter, it's not that much different than it's been for decades in retail stores. Some stores charge different prices for products that are physically identical. Do an experiment and see. The next time a Blu-Ray or CD comes out that you're interested in, do some comparative shopping. You'll see that the same physical CD can range in price, some sales are as low as $7-11 and some stores charge closer to MSRP at $18-20. And don't even get me started on digital versions. Amazon.com and Google Music frequently sell tracks at lower prices than iTunes. Amazon has frequently sold entire albums at $5 or less, and Google Music has been running a variety of specials lately around $3.99 albums. I've managed to collect around a dozen albums I love on various services for a total of less than $10 by taking advantage of these sorts of specials.

    Would you not agree that it would be silly to forsake buying music forever simply because different stores might charge different prices for the same CD? It seems as silly to me to forsake ordering a game you want to play simply because another platform has a different price. When it comes to money, cost and value everything is subjective. The cost of the PC game via Steam is $24.99, via Telltale it's $22.49 right now. Even on the PC the price of the game is inconsistent, just as it's been with every other form of media and every other platform. Holding out for some sort of unified pricing scheme just means you're going to miss out on some really great games and that would be a real shame.

    And heck, think of it this way, paying a few extra dollars for the PC version means you'll have a copy of the game that you can still play in ten years. After 10 years most of my older consoles won't even connect to my TV, but I have no problems firing up classic adventure games from decades prior. You're spending a few dollars to have some piece of mind that this game will be probably be easily playable years from now.
  • edited April 2012
    Ah- you're referring to the $5 difference between Steam and PS3 prices.

    Sorry about that- there are a number of people complaining about the difference between Steam and Telltale prices and that's due to currency exchange issues.

    As for why PS3 and Seam are priced differently? I can't help at all, unfortunately.

    As mentioned by another member, I'm a volunteer, not Telltale staff.
  • edited April 2012
    jab1981 wrote: »
    Cut him some slack, divisionten seems like a nice guy and he's doing the best he can. He's not an employee, just an average joe like us! :D

    These different distribution arrangements can become difficult and are not that uncommon. I can think of several other programs or apps that have different prices in different digital stores. Items on my Nook Color are routinely more expensive than the same apps directly through the App store. And those apps are often different prices in iTunes. Though developers may be able to set the price on Steam, that doesn't account for the percentage of the sale Steam will take. Perhaps the difference in cost is related to the amount of money taken by Sony and taken by Steam with adjustments made so that Telltale receives the same amount on the back end.

    For that matter, it's not that much different than it's been for decades in retail stores. Some stores charge different prices for products that are physically identical. Do an experiment and see. The next time a Blu-Ray or CD comes out that you're interested in, do some comparative shopping. You'll see that the same physical CD can range in price, some sales are as low as $7-11 and some stores charge closer to MSRP at $18-20. And don't even get me started on digital versions. Amazon.com and Google Music frequently sell tracks at lower prices than iTunes. Amazon has frequently sold entire albums at $5 or less, and Google Music has been running a variety of specials lately around $3.99 albums. I've managed to collect around a dozen albums I love on various services for a total of less than $10 by taking advantage of these sorts of specials.

    Would you not agree that it would be silly to forsake buying music forever simply because different stores might charge different prices for the same CD? It seems as silly to me to forsake ordering a game you want to play simply because another platform has a different price. When it comes to money, cost and value everything is subjective. The cost of the PC game via Steam is $24.99, via Telltale it's $22.49 right now. Even on the PC the price of the game is inconsistent, just as it's been with every other form of media and every other platform. Holding out for some sort of unified pricing scheme just means you're going to miss out on some really great games and that would be a real shame.

    And heck, think of it this way, paying a few extra dollars for the PC version means you'll have a copy of the game that you can still play in ten years. After 10 years most of my older consoles won't even connect to my TV, but I have no problems firing up classic adventure games from decades prior. You're spending a few dollars to have some piece of mind that this game will be probably be easily playable years from now.

    But prices on Steam and PSN are set by the Publisher. Prices in a shop are set by the shop itself. It's more like there being 2 GameStops next to each other, and each GameStop having a different set of prices.
  • edited April 2012
    skidpro wrote: »
    I would have bought the console version TBH, this is blatant rip off for the PC gamer.....

    Keep in mind, in a few months or more you'll likely see this game on sale on Steam. And if history is any indicator, you'll also likely see a sale on Telltale's own site. Right now I see an offer to get the Walking Dead, Sam and Max 1-3, Jurassic Park, Back to the Future, Law and Order, Strong Bad, Hector & Puzzle Agent 1&2 all for $42.49. That's probably the farthest thing from ripping off the PC gamer outside of them giving away copies for free and if you follow Telltale you'll know they do that frequently too! Most of those games aren't even on the 360, some aren't even on the PS3. I don't even want to think about how much each of those cost on PSN!

    Just be careful and considerate about what you buy. If paying $2 more for a PC version is unthinkable and a terrible value to you, save that money and buy a PS3. Or just wait it out and pick it up when an inevitable sale comes along.
  • edited April 2012
    But prices on Steam and PSN are set by the Publisher. Prices in a shop are set by the shop itself. It's more like there being 2 GameStops next to each other, and each GameStop having a different set of prices.

    I've been on Amazon and they occasionally have multiple listing of the same CD with the same tracklisting for different prices. This already happens, though less frequently and typically I believe these are mistakes. But it can and does happen.

    Again, though the publisher may set the price on PSN or on Steam (I don't know this is true, but I'll trust you) this does not take into account the percentage that's paid to each provider. I could not find any reliable information on what Steam takes as their cut, we have no way to know how these factors can play out. Say Steam takes a 30% cut and Sony takes a 20% cut. Should Telltale take a loss on that simply to provide some sort of universal price that doesn't exist? They'd have to alter most of iTunes as well since very few of their games are as cheap in iTunes as they are on the PC. Even further when you consider that there is a cost in developing games onto other platforms. Or that Telltale has some sort of arrangement with Sony, we've already seen a few of their titles up for free on PS Plus. There are literally a dozen different things that consumers like ourselves would have no way of knowing, and each of those could have dramatic impacts on cost. I wouldn't even be surprised if at least some of it was intentional to try and shift consumers towards consoles due to piracy. All of those issues paint a picture that Telltale is very aware of but we are very much not, and as such if Telltale is setting the price the way they are they probably have a very good reason for it.

    But that said, debating who sets what cost is irrelevant. The bigger point is that there is no precedent for expecting a company to charge the same price on every platform or for every device. I can think of very few examples where this is true. For example Wii games typically cost less than PS3 games, for the past several years a lot of modern PC games retailed for around $10 less than console releases. Mostly due to Sony and MS charging a $10 fee just to run on their platform, ironically now a lot of PC games are retailing for $60 on Steam. So now even though their cost is $10 less per title, they still charge that extra $10 because they can. This is hardly a new occurrence. The same product will cost differently depending on the store, the time of day, the method you pay, sales taxes, rewards programs. Telltale is one of few developers still actively supporting PCs and has offered so many spectacular deals and truck loads of free content that complaining about a few bucks just seems in poor taste. If we were talking about some huge corporation trying to milk consumers, I'm all in. But we're talking about a few bucks from a company that's really trying. I don't see any evidence of abuse, all I see is a what seems to be a great game at a great price.
  • edited April 2012
    jab1981 wrote: »
    I've been on Amazon and they occasionally have multiple listing of the same CD with the same tracklisting for different prices. This already happens, though less frequently and typically I believe these are mistakes. But it can and does happen.

    The different prices are because some people sell through Amazon. Not because Amazon thinks it's funny to put the same object up for multiple prices.
  • edited April 2012
    jab1981 wrote: »
    Keep in mind, in a few months or more you'll likely see this game on sale on Steam. And if history is any indicator, you'll also likely see a sale on Telltale's own site. Right now I see an offer to get the Walking Dead, Sam and Max 1-3, Jurassic Park, Back to the Future, Law and Order, Strong Bad, Hector & Puzzle Agent 1&2 all for $42.49. That's probably the farthest thing from ripping off the PC gamer outside of them giving away copies for free and if you follow Telltale you'll know they do that frequently too! Most of those games aren't even on the 360, some aren't even on the PS3. I don't even want to think about how much each of those cost on PSN!
    QUOTE]
    look I dont wanna get into an argument but you have contradicted yourself here!

    most of the telltale game you mention are on PSN/XBLA anyways, and they do sales too!

    You say shops set prices so they can be different store to store...however, on a launch on a unified platform, whether its is x platform or not the PRICE should be same for PSN as XBLA as STEAM as I am not walking around from GAME to HMV to whoever etc etc as they are all on my PC (you can get the PSN purchase online PC with media go and download to your console, you can sign into Xbox.com and buy it and tell the web site to download to your console)

    They all do sales at some point...and most if not all the games you mention can be gotton off PSN/XBLA at reduced prices too and in bundles like telltale......

    NEW GAME...RRP:??????

    as they are all the digital downloads why is Steam up to £5 more then PSN or XBLA? and, can we have a TELLTALE staff answer the question please......
  • edited April 2012
    look I dont wanna get into an argument but you have contradicted yourself here!

    most of the telltale game you mention are on PSN/XBLA anyways, and they do sales too!

    You say shops set prices so they can be different store to store...however, on a launch on a unified platform, whether its is x platform or not the PRICE should be same for PSN as XBLA as STEAM as I am not walking around from GAME to HMV to whoever etc etc as they are all on my PC (you can get the PSN purchase online PC with media go and download to your console, you can sign into Xbox.com and buy it and tell the web site to download to your console)

    They all do sales at some point...and most if not all the games you mention can be gotton off PSN/XBLA at reduced prices too and in bundles like telltale......

    NEW GAME...RRP:??????

    as they are all the digital downloads why is Steam up to £5 more then PSN or XBLA? and, can we have a TELLTALE staff answer the question please......
  • edited April 2012
    jab1981 wrote: »
    Keep in mind, in a few months or more you'll likely see this game on sale on Steam. And if history is any indicator, you'll also likely see a sale on Telltale's own site. Right now I see an offer to get the Walking Dead, Sam and Max 1-3, Jurassic Park, Back to the Future, Law and Order, Strong Bad, Hector & Puzzle Agent 1&2 all for $42.49. That's probably the farthest thing from ripping off the PC gamer outside of them giving away copies for free and if you follow Telltale you'll know they do that frequently too! Most of those games aren't even on the 360, some aren't even on the PS3. I don't even want to think about how much each of those cost on PSN!

    Just be careful and considerate about what you buy. If paying $2 more for a PC version is unthinkable and a terrible value to you, save that money and buy a PS3. Or just wait it out and pick it up when an inevitable sale comes along.

    look I dont wanna get into an argument but you have contradicted yourself here!

    most of the telltale game you mention are on PSN/XBLA anyways, and they do sales too!

    You say shops set prices so they can be different store to store...however, on a launch on a unified platform, whether its is x platform or not the PRICE should be same for PSN as XBLA as STEAM as I am not walking around from GAME to HMV to whoever etc etc as they are all on my PC (you can get the PSN purchase online PC with media go and download to your console, you can sign into Xbox.com and buy it and tell the web site to download to your console)

    They all do sales at some point...and most if not all the games you mention can be gotton off PSN/XBLA at reduced prices too and in bundles like telltale......

    NEW GAME...RRP:??????

    as they are all the digital downloads why is Steam up to £5 more then PSN or XBLA? and, can we have a TELLTALE staff answer the question please......
  • edited April 2012
    site will not let me post properly
  • edited April 2012
    jab1981 wrote: »
    Keep in mind, in a few months or more you'll likely see this game on sale on Steam. And if history is any indicator, you'll also likely see a sale on Telltale's own site. Right now I see an offer to get the Walking Dead, Sam and Max 1-3, Jurassic Park, Back to the Future, Law and Order, Strong Bad, Hector & Puzzle Agent 1&2 all for $42.49. That's probably the farthest thing from ripping off the PC gamer outside of them giving away copies for free and if you follow Telltale you'll know they do that frequently too! Most of those games aren't even on the 360, some aren't even on the PS3. I don't even want to think about how much each of those cost on PSN!

    Just be careful and considerate about what you buy. If paying $2 more for a PC version is unthinkable and a terrible value to you, save that money and buy a PS3. Or just wait it out and pick it up when an inevitable sale comes along.

    look I dont wanna get into an argument but you have contradicted yourself here!

    most of the telltale game you mention are on PSN/XBLA anyways, and they do sales too!

    You say shops set prices so they can be different store to store...however, on a launch on a unified platform, whether its is x platform or not the PRICE should be same for PSN as XBLA as STEAM as I am not walking around from

    GAME to HMV to whoever etc etc as they are all on my PC (you can get the PSN purchase online PC with media go and download to your console, you can sign into Xbox.com and buy it and tell the web site to download to your

    console)

    They all do sales at some point...and most if not all the games you mention can be gotton off PSN/XBLA at reduced prices too and in bundles like telltale......

    NEW GAME...RRP:??????

    as they are all the digital downloads why is Steam up to £5 more then PSN or XBLA? and, can we have a TELLTALE staff answer the question please......
  • edited April 2012
    The different prices are because some people sell through Amazon. Not because Amazon thinks it's funny to put the same object up for multiple prices.

    I think I type far too much, the massive volumes of text relating to the inner workings of digital distribution end up being tossed to the side for a throw away comment about Amazon. ;)

    That said, I'm not talking about user prices or used sales. What I'm talking about is Amazon listing two pages for the same item. This just recently happened to me with a recent CD purchase. They had two listings for a "deluxe edition" of a CD. I ordered the more expensive copy (it was a dollar difference, both were Prime eligible a feature not available on used copies). They ended up stopping that shipment after it was shipped and having that copy returned to them, and they ended up shipping me the "deluxe edition" again from the lower priced item. My own personal theory is that they mistakenly listed two "deluxe edition" albums instead of a standard and deluxe edition and they shipped me the standard version of the album. I think they realized this after shipment, stopped and returned the standard version and sent out the deluxe edition instead. After this happened the listing that I placed my order on was taken down. So again, I believe this is typically a mistake but it does happen. I only mentioned it because it happened to me so recently and it's exactly the same as the scenario you described, it wasn't intended to really be part of the dialog outside of demonstrating that this does happen. Another example is Best Buy. You can frequently find differences between their online and in-store prices. After dealing with BB customer service a number of times I can tell you that these prices are not uniform even amongst their own store.

    That said, the previous volumes of thoughts and information that was FAR more relevant to the conversation still stand. The prices have never been uniform, and frankly suggesting that they should be only opens the door to companies over charging for their titles as they're currently doing on the PC. As I mentioned, PC games used to be $50 since the publisher didn't need to pay the $10 fee to MS or Sony. But these publishers found they could still charge the $60 price and keep the $10. I'd much rather have $50 PC games, than a universal $60 price.
  • edited April 2012
    skidpro wrote: »
    look I dont wanna get into an argument but you have contradicted yourself here!

    No worries about an argument, I'm a happy guy and I'm not in the least bothered by a different opinion. I had some trouble actually understanding your post(s), so forgive me if I'm wrong but I don't think you understood my post. I can't for the life of me figure out what you think was a contradiction.

    I mentioned that if a person was so upset about a $2 difference in price they could wait for the inevitable sale and save that $2 plus some more. I'm not sure where the confusion came from. I am aware that XBLA has had a single rather small sale for both Sam & Max and for Wallace and Gromit, however neither the 360 nor the PS3 have ever seen sales the likes of which we've seen on the PC either on Steam or on Telltale's store. The 360 sale I remember was half off, the sale currently going on with the Walking Dead is much more dramatic than that. To say that the PC consumer is the consumer getting "blatantly ripped off" leads me to believe you haven't paid very much attention to the prices for these games over the years. They've always clearly been in favor of the PC market by a large amount.

    And I'm not sure where you're going with the angle on stores. Is it that you think an online store has more of an obligation to you? That since you can access that sale on the PC all prices must somehow equalize? This is especially weird since I already mentioned several online only stores who routinely charge different prices (iTunes, Amazon MP3 & Google Music or Google Play). Those are all digital downloads. There is no such rule or obligation that a retailer must provide identical pricing for products simply because you don't have to walk in the store. Simply put, there's a whole lot more to it than that.

    I can understand some of the confusion. The gaming industry has spent the past several years trying to justify a uniform $60 price. For a number of reasons it is in their interest to convince you that every game has a standard value so that they can get you to believe a game is worth $60. It does not mean they are required to sell you that game at $60, it simply means it's in their best interest in that specific situation to get you to believe that console games have a specific worth and value. The music industry for example has unsuccessfully been attempting to artificially raise the price of their wares. The MSRP has been around $20 for years even though stores will usually sell them much lower, and recently they've pressured iTunes into hiking those $.99 tracks to $1.29. Once consumers accept that price point, it sticks and they've managed to convince us their product is worth that value. This happens with games as well, as I mentioned in another post PC games are now starting to charge the same $60 price even though they don't pay the same $10 licensing fee that required on the consoles. But you can see how by keeping the price at $60 they've managed to convince the consumers of a certain value and now they can ask that price without ruffling too many feathers. But I think at the same time this type of price fixing has created some sort of false belief that this is being done to make things "fair" or that you're entitled to certain prices on certain platforms. That is not the case.

    Does this point come across? You have no right to games being the same price on every platform. It doesn't matter how many rules you and I create. It's simply not how it works. It doesn't matter if you walk to the store, bike, take a train or use your iPhone... you simply do not have a right to a certain price. It might be nice or it might be disappointing, but a company is under no obligation to you to provide it's products at some sort of uniform pricing system. That has never been the case.

    Telltale has and continues to treat their customers extremely well, especially their PC customers. There are a number of companies who would deserve these sorts of complaints, Telltale really isn't one of them. They're a smaller company that has an occasional hiccup, but they certainly don't rip off their PC customers. Not even with a lot of make believe rules.
  • edited April 2012
    jab1981 wrote: »
    Keep in mind, in a few months or more you'll likely see this game on sale on Steam. And if history is any indicator, you'll also likely see a sale on Telltale's own site. Right now I see an offer to get the Walking Dead, Sam and Max 1-3, Jurassic Park, Back to the Future, Law and Order, Strong Bad, Hector & Puzzle Agent 1&2 all for $42.49. That's probably the farthest thing from ripping off the PC gamer outside of them giving away copies for free and if you follow Telltale you'll know they do that frequently too! Most of those games aren't even on the 360, some aren't even on the PS3. I don't even want to think about how much each of those cost on PSN!

    Just be careful and considerate about what you buy. If paying $2 more for a PC version is unthinkable and a terrible value to you, save that money and buy a PS3. Or just wait it out and pick it up when an inevitable sale comes along.

    look I dont wanna get into an argument but you have contradicted yourself here!

    most of the telltale game you mention are on PSN/XBLA anyways, and they do sales too!

    You say shops set prices so they can be different store to store...however, on a launch on a unified platform, whether its is x platform or not the PRICE should be same for PSN as XBLA as STEAM as I am not walking around from GAME to HMV to whoever etc etc as they are all on my PC (you can get the PSN purchase online PC with media go and download to your console, you can sign into Xbox.com and buy it and tell the web site to download to your console)

    They all do sales at some point...and most if not all the games you mention can be gotton off PSN/XBLA at reduced prices too and in bundles like telltale......

    NEW GAME...RRP:??????

    as they are all the digital downloads why is Steam up to £5 more then PSN or XBLA? and, can we have a TELLTALE staff answer the question please......

    I couldnt post again yesterday.....
  • edited April 2012
    I too wonder why Steam charges more for the games than direct from TT. Perhaps you pay for the convenience of Steam, since BTTF on Steam is also higher priced. I don't think it's up to TT to set the prices on Steam, I would guess Steam buys the product from TT and sets their own price.

    A member of staff clearing this up would be handy.
  • edited April 2012
    Steam is just F'd up!
  • edited April 2012
    and don't forget regional prices!

    I think it's quite obvious, why steam version costs more. Cause PC is ultimate game platform, which provides superb quality of interactive entertaiment... yara-yara-yara :D
This discussion has been closed.